“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” ENPPI have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Ahmed Nader Hawash was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around ENPPI they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
22 combined actions and 7.12. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at ENPPI, and it is not being withdrawn.
Ahmed Nader Hawash was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ENPPI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 20 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Smouha? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ENPPI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rafik Kabou is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 36 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ENPPI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kahraba is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Hussein El Shahat is 38 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 43 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Ahmed Nader Hawash was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The words a physio says slowly. 138 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ENPPI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Mar 2030
Ahmed Said falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mohamed Raafat. 2‑0 against El Dakhleya, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The words a physio says slowly. 31 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ENPPI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Dec 2029
Ahmed Said falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Mohamed Raafat has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The words a physio says slowly. 45 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at ENPPI, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Abdelrahman Magdy provided it, and the 7.78 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Usman Abubakar will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around ENPPI the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at ENPPI this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Kano is a ENPPI player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
6 goals in one match, Abdelrahman Magdy on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of ENPPI and Police Union.
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad3 Dec 2029
Ahmed Said falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.